The Alternative
by neobryce
Summary: Perseus Jackson thought everything was going well, according to plan. But he starts to realize that it isn't so when everything started to go wrong. He will have to find his way to the heart of the Centrum and embrace his destiny. His real one.


**I.**

I close my eyes as I drink from the cup. Medicine. Blerrkk. It's supposed to make the stinging on my left temple feel better. Nope. It didn't. The syrup tastes like strawberry. Strawberry and honey mixed together. Although there are no real strawberries anymore and the new world is nothing but soil and...Well...more soil; our founders still have find ways to give us a taste of the past. A hydro-generated food cube version of the past. Though only synthetics,_ I'm_ still fortunate enough to have tasted them. Not. I don't like them. They taste like socks and underwear even when they're supposed to taste like meat and grapes. Anyway, this might be the last time I'd taste anything so...hoozah!

"We are finished here, Perseus," Arthur Kind says, massaging his fingers. He's this tall guy, built with a bald head and thick binocular-like glasses and a weird lightning-shaped goatee. Not really Kind-looking. "You may now exit and wait for your room to rest." I stand up from the chair as he hands me a black—it felt like glass—glass ball which has the numbers _110_ inscribed on it. "That would be your room. Congratulations..." he extends his hand toward me and I shake it. "...and...Welcome to the Myriad," he says with a huge exhale. I nod and paint a crooked smile on my face. You can't really smile properly when your mouth feels dry and numb. The strawberry syrup I've taken earlier has now become bitter on my tongue. I turn to walk towards the door. As soon as I've reached it, I place my palm flat against the cold metal until it opens. _I'm gotta get me one of these weird hand-censored doors someday when I get old, _I tell myself. I have already been told several stories about the Myriad ever since I was a young kid. But now, seeing it with my own two eyes, I am awestruck. I was wrong for telling myself and my family earlier that I was prepared. Nope. Nothing will ever prepare you for the Myriad. _Nothing_. Nada...Ze-ro.

I know that now, standing outside the steel walls of the Foyer. Everything is very surprisingly...white. Everything, from the room doors to the tile floor, up to the gigantic walls, onto the highest roof I have ever seen in my life has been strictly just painted white. The aura is powerful, like it demanded obedience. It felt like a chamber to me, actually. Glancing almost everywhere at the same time, I wait and stand outside the door. The hallways onto my right and left are as quiet as the restrooms back home at night. I continue waiting, until the numbers on the glass black ball glow light green on my right palm. The numbers on the ball then disappear and are replaced by a small neon dot that is rotating like a pupil of an eye. Soon, in a blink of an eye and a fast whip of damp air, the door to my room is in front of me. Yes, just like that. The numbers _110 _are engraved very deeply above the door. My father was right. The rooms do find you and not the other way around. I walk hastily towards it. You know, just in case it eats me up or something. Spoiler: it doesn't. Two feet away from the door, the rectangular tile below my two feet glows, the light runs up through my body. A scan.

"Perseus Jackson. New Babylon. Identification: Confirmed. Welcome to Quarter 110. Enter," a voice from that ball Arthur gave me earlier spoke which kind of freaked me out a little. Okay, freaked me out a lot. (The glass ball thingy flew out of my hand.) The door opens to a small room, much smaller than my room back at home. Again, everything is white, except for the metal window frames. "Follow me." I don't know what's more surprising, the fact that the room is a little too good to be true or that I'm intentionally following a flying, talking eyeball. It floats toward a bunk that is placed perfectly below the window. I follow it and sit down there. The room is fresh and has good air-conditioning, not a good room to be in when you're in a training facility. I might oversleep if I won't be careful. Obviously, I won't mind sleeping. But of course, our leaders might kick me out before I even graduate. From the window, you can see Centrum. It's a city just beyond the Myriad. I've always wanted to go there when I was a kid. "Hello, Perseus. I am Zion," the ball says startling the crap out of me and floating in front of my face, moving its pixelated eyeball like a real eye would have.

"God! You gotta stop doing that!" I tell it.

"Oh...I apologize, sir," he says in monotone. "I will be your assistant here in the Myriad. I am programmed to run important errands for you and to also remind you of your daily training schedule."

I feel myself smile. It's kind of weird, talking to a ball, especially when it's flying and it's made to look like an eye.

"Well nice to meet you, Zion. But it's okay to just call me Percy. I mean, I'm not even paying you or anything."

"Of course...umm...Percy. My system is after all, open to suggestion," he says. Zion has a male voice so...yup, weird.

"Alright then," I smile. I've just made a friend with a talking, mechanical, flying eyeball. Man, what a start.

"That was a wonderful first evening, sir. But that is enough for tonight. I have to inform you that your orientation is going to begin in a few seconds," he says.

"Orientation? But it's..." Suddenly, I feel my head spin. Lightheaded, I lie down on my bunk with my eyes starting to feel heavy.

"Have a good night's sleep, Percy," Zion says, flying upward in a black blur; much like what happens next.

"Hello, Perseus! I see you've met Zion," a man with wild eyes and a scraggly beard says, standing in front of me.

"What the f...?" I stop myself, surprised. Of course, who wouldn't be surprised? One moment you're in a room and now you're inside a...void. A dark void. No edges. No ends. Just a...void.

"Naturally. My name is Rashal and welcome...to the Argo. This is you orientation."


End file.
